Thoughts on books, reading and publishing from the staff and friends of the Tattered Cover Book Store.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

New On Our Shelves:

“Get out!”

Looking out on the sweeping lawns of McDonnell’s
Methodist Children’s Home in the spring of 1974, eight-year-old Paul
Wayne Buras had no idea of the implications those two words would have
on his life. That day, Paul’s gruff, abusive father took his three
youngest children to the nearest orphanage, herded them to the
administration building, and drove away.

For many children, that
act of abandonment would have signaled the beginning of a life of loss
ending in poverty, severe dysfunction, prison, or worse. But not for
Paul. At MacDonnell’s something magical happened—two humble nuns and
their dedicated staff embraced this resilient boy and taught him about
grace, love, and power of redemption. In the often rough-and-tumble
atmosphere, Sisters Janice Buescher and Ellen Babin created an
unconventional family for their forty young charges, with ties that, for
many, would last a lifetime.

Walking Earth readers must strap in for a fast and perilous ride
through the Navajo’s Dinetah and Utah’s canyon country.

Young Navajo
Kika Windsong and her daredevil boyfriend, Howie Parker, set out to
recover the world’s most treasured archaeological artifacts. Twelve of
the artifacts are incised with a code etched as an ideogram. The world’s
top code breaker and a world renowned museum curator are recruited to
crack it. Trace minerals link the artifacts to volcanic bedrock of
Easter Island, 10,000 miles away. Other artifacts resemble enigmatic
statues of that Pacific island. Clues surface which suggest a lost
civilization migrated 18,000 years ago from the Island to the Colorado
Plateau. New theories positing humans migrated northeasterly into the
Americas from southern latitudes are introduced. Proof lies in
deciphering the ideogram. Chilean scholars join forces with the American
team in a race to announce the earth-shattering paradigm.

Characters
vault from each page as tension peaks and the mystery untangles.
Windsong narrates images of Navajo creation stories garnered from her
youth. A Navajo Nation Policeman blends rich Navajo lore into the
adventure. A covert intelligence agent weaves a treacherous web of
deceit and espionage into the plot. The veteran National Security Agency
sleuth is linked to a mole in a the US Department of Energy. Spy games
detonate with his double-crossing Plan B. “Dirty bombs” threaten a major
source of the West’s power and water. Those yearning for blood-thirsty
action will satisfy their palate as archaeological looters slay anyone
getting in their way of stealing the artifacts. An invincible foe is
introduced to literature ---Whitey, whose global reputation crowns him
with an ominous nickname: “Impossible to Kill”. Magnificent Southwest
landscapes are viewed through a naturalist’s eyes. Life in the arid
Southwest, its Native cultures and diverse archaeological ruins become
ingrained in readers. A galvanized ending, orchestrated by NSA’s master
spy at Fort Meade headquarters, occurs on Navajo land near sacred Navajo
Mountain.